"He's the one who likes all our pretty songs and he likes to

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NewTime
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26 Jun 2018, 7:02 pm

"sing along and he likes to shoot his gun" "but he knows not what it means" or is it "but he don't know what it means"? The written lyrics for the song say "knows not what it means" but to me it clearly sounds like he's singing "don't know what it means".



Fnord
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26 Jun 2018, 7:08 pm

"In Bloom" -- Nirvana (1992)
Lyrics by Kurt Cobain

He's the one
Who like all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he don't know what it means
Don't know what it means
And I say yeah


Cobain's lyrics address the people outside the underground music scene that began showing up at Nirvana shows after the release of the group's debut album Bleach. Remarkably, the song's lyrics translate even better to the mass popularity the band itself enjoyed. The brilliant irony is that the tune is so catchy that millions of people actually do sing along to it.

In his biography of Cobain, "Heavier Than Heaven", Charles R. Cross asserted that the song was a "thinly disguised portrait" of Cobain's friend Dylan Carlson.



Exuvian
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29 Jun 2018, 8:18 am

NewTime wrote:
"sing along and he likes to shoot his gun" "but he knows not what it means" or is it "but he don't know what it means"? The written lyrics for the song say "knows not what it means" but to me it clearly sounds like he's singing "don't know what it means".

It's definitely sung as "don't know". Williams Shakespeare doesn't need to be correcting rock lyrics. :wink:



funeralxempire
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22 Aug 2020, 5:03 am

Exuvian wrote:
NewTime wrote:
"sing along and he likes to shoot his gun" "but he knows not what it means" or is it "but he don't know what it means"? The written lyrics for the song say "knows not what it means" but to me it clearly sounds like he's singing "don't know what it means".

It's definitely sung as "don't know". Williams Shakespeare doesn't need to be correcting rock lyrics. :wink:


I've gotten my own words wrong too. Meh.


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